


The Mafia Boss Who’s In Over His Head

by manic_intent



Category: John Wick (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, NYMag Sex Diary, That AU where John doesn't make his choice at the end of JW2 and instead moves into the Continental, as a passive-aggressive neighbour
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-24
Updated: 2017-07-24
Packaged: 2018-12-06 13:02:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11601210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manic_intent/pseuds/manic_intent
Summary: New York’s Sex Diaries series asks anonymous city dwellers to record a week in their sex lives — with comic, tragic, often sexy, and always revealing results. This week, a 36-year-old Italian mafia boss is trapped in a hotel with a 52-year-old not!retired assassin who’s holding a grudge.





	The Mafia Boss Who’s In Over His Head

**Author's Note:**

> I asked tumblr to give me prompts for this pairing and got quickly inundated, then had to close the prompt window. Thanks guys. ^^;; Here's the first one. 
> 
> Prompt: John doesn't kill Santino. Instead, he chooses to move to the next door at the Continental to keep an eye on him (at some point the man has to leave the place, right?). And they just passive-aggressively live side by side?
> 
> Okay I admit when I saw this prompt pop in I loled in the office. And it fit for something I’ve been wanting to do for a while. You guys ever heard of the NYMag Sex Diaries? http://nymag.com/tags/sex-diaries/ I love/hate reading it, everyone seems so weird and crazy and unreal, and yet it’s my commute popcorn reading. I keep going back to it. This fic will run in that format XD;;

> New York’s Sex Diaries series asks anonymous city dwellers to record a week in their sex lives — with comic, tragic, often sexy, and always revealing results. This week, a 36-year-old Italian mafia boss is trapped in a hotel with a 52-year-old not!retired assassin who’s holding a grudge.

**DAY ONE**

**4 a.m.** Someone tries to kill my neighbour. _The_ neighbour. I rub a hand over my face and pull a pillow over my head, listening to the muffled shouts and thumps. It’s a bit of an awkward situation. On one hand, I want to sleep and I _could_ call the concierge with a noise complaint. On the other hand, I’m technically indirectly responsible for the situation, since I’m the reason my neighbour has a bounty on his head. I check my phone and wait.

 **4:15 a.m.** It’s been five minutes since the noise has died down and Accounts hasn’t transferred the money. No luck then. I try to go back to sleep. 

**8 a.m.** I decide to have breakfast in. I flick on the tv and put an order through the concierge. 8 in the day, 8 at night, 3 in in the fucking morning and it’s always the same guy. Either the concierge guy is an android or the Manager is seriously breaking labour laws. (Does America have labour laws?) 

The concierge takes my order, wishes me a good morning and informs me rather smugly that the neighbour has not checked out. I hang up. Fuck that guy. Fuck my neighbour too. How hard is it to have a guy in his 50s killed? 

**8:30 a.m.** American daytime television is depressing.

 **10:30 a.m.** I check my phone for the fifth time this hour. The Continental has a No Business on the Premises rule: no killing, no thieving, no calling hits, no managing minions. Not even legitimate business is allowed. There’s no rule against checking your phone. Just a rule against answering it.

Heard a story once. Some Cosa Nostra brat thought it’d be hilarious to test the boundaries. Sold a pair of socks on eBay while using the wifi in the lobby. He was found floating in the fountain of a nearby park, covered with socks. The Manager can be an amazingly petty person. 

Wait, you might ask. What is the Continental? Who is this Manager? Why are you trying to kill your neighbour? Can you really get killed because you sold a pair of socks? And isn’t writing this diary for this magazine technically conducting Business on the Premises? 

Don’t bother finding out. If you don’t know anything about this world, then it’s not for you. As to the diary, I got permission. The Manager said it might help me reconcile myself to my fate. Shows him what he knows. I have the resources to live here for years. My neighbour doesn’t. 

26 messages this morning so far. It’s a slow day. 

**1:10 p.m.** I descend to the dining room for lunch, because there’s nothing else left to read and watching reruns is starting to make my soul leave my body. Either the Continental’s too cheap to fork out for cable or my room is getting the special treatment. I suspect the latter. As I’ve said, the Manager can be incredibly petty, and I may have pissed him off some time ago when I tried to strong-arm him into revoking the neighbour’s membership. I make a mental note to call a hit on Jerry Springer someday and order lunch.

 **1:30 p.m.** My neighbour appears. His left cheek is mildly bruised and he’s favouring a leg on the same side. Pretty good. Last week’s attempt only gave him a scratch. He looks around the dining room and lopes over to my table. “Seat taken?” 

“Fuck you,” I tell him. It’s a ritual. He can’t hurt me in here, I can’t hurt him in here. Physically, anyway. The Manager hasn’t laid down any ground rules about psychological warfare. Not that it works on the neighbour. I’m pretty sure he’s dead inside. He sits down at the table. Doesn’t talk. Just stares at me while I eat. 

So I pretend I’m actually enjoying this sad excuse for pasta. The chef should be hung, drawn, and quartered for his daily crimes. Or maybe Americans don’t really understand what ‘al dente’ means. And they think the rest of the world is uncivilised. 

**2 p.m.** It’s not a retreat if you’re stuck in the same building. 

**2:15 p.m.** The foyer is generally busy at this time of day. Check in is at 2, a custom that the Continental shares with its normal cousins. I like to people watch. It’s usually fixers passing through on business. There’s the Nigerian, whom I’ve met once in Monaco. We exchange nods. The Scholar is here, though she keeps her eyes down and murmurs to the Concierge in rapid-fire Cantonese. Scattering of Russians, some bratva, some freelance. 

**3 p.m.** The neighbour hasn’t come by the foyer to do his best impression of a stalker. Hmm. Maybe he choked on a fishbone and died. One can only hope. 

**7 p.m.** Dinner. The neighbour is not dead. God has been cruel. We eat in silence. Same table. 

**10:30 p.m.** The bar is the sole saving grace of the New York Continental. It has an excellent selection of wines, better than Rome’s. I’m nursing a beautiful Barolo when my consigliere walks in. I stare at her, shocked. “Shouldn’t you still be in hospital?” Oops. That was rude. I repeat myself, signing apologetically.

She smiles. Her gait’s stiff as she walks over to the bar and pulls herself onto a seat. -I got tired of lying in bed.-

-Most people who get stabbed in the chest tend to need rest.- I might have been the reason, the neighbour might have been the vector. She shrugs and winces.

We talk for a while. Then I can’t resist. -How’s things?- 

My consigliere stares at me, a little reproachful. It’s a loaded question. -Recovering,- she finally replies, purposefully vague. She doesn’t just mean herself. Nice and subtle. I nod. She doesn’t want a drink. I walk her to the door. On my way through the foyer, I notice the Nigerian’s back from whatever business she was on. She looks happy. Things have gone well. I offer to buy her a drink, she tells me she’d rather we have a drink in her room. Why not. Monaco was not so long ago.

**DAY TWO**

**6:45 a.m.** The Nigerian has a plane to catch. She’s not apologetic about waking me up. I make an oblique reference about the neighbour and she laughs. “I don’t have a death wish,” she says, then, “that’s the problem with you pretty boys. You think the world exists for your sake.”

“Maybe it should,” I tell her, smiling. 

She’s not charmed. “Learn your lesson, darling,” she says, and makes a shooing gesture. I leave. Never overstay your welcome with women. Especially knifework specialists.

 **9 a.m.** I have breakfast in the rooftop garden. Slightly more expensive, but I probably need the sunlight. 

**9:15 a.m.** The neighbour appears. I toast him with my cappuccino. He looks tired, but grim. Like an old hunting dog. Speaking of dogs. “What happened to your dog?” 

He blinks at me. Most of the time, the neighbour doesn’t bother to talk. Today looks no different for a while, then he frowns. “Where were you last night?”

“An information trade? Isn’t that doing business?” The neighbour shrugs. Clearly whether I choose to trade or not makes no real difference to him. Fine. “Met a friend in the foyer. We had a good night.” He thinks this over. Gives me a name. I stare. Had he been…? I hadn’t noticed. That was a mistake. 

“Hotel doesn’t board dogs.” 

I wait. The Manager doesn’t descend from On High to tell us we’re no longer welcome. Maybe there’s a delay time. I’m not sure what the punishment for this transgression would be. Death in a park, covered by dogs? I hope not. Fur is hell on suits.

“Pity,” I say, after a suitable time has passed. “I like dogs. They don’t bite the hand that feeds them.”

“That what you call it?” 

“We had an agreement. A trade took place. If all trades were null and void upon a unilaterally agreed retirement, then why would anyone bother to trade?” 

“Maybe you shouldn’t have tried to kill me.” 

Maybe. 

To cut a long story short, many years ago the neighbour met a beautiful woman and decided to retire in matrimonial happiness. Yes, very trite and boring, you would say. Who would’ve thought. Under every seemingly interesting person there’s always someone tedious, in my experience. 

In any case, there were complications: the neighbour happened to work for the local branch of the bratva at the time, and the bratva are possessive. They wanted a blood price. He needed my help to pay it. For said help he promised me another blood price… I know, bad logic, but that’s the problem with fixers. They get hit in the head often and then logic often becomes a distant exercise. 

Years later I try to call in said blood price, end up having to persuade him by blowing up his house—believe me, not the worst option. He kills the person I want killed, then I try to clean up the loose ends. Nothing personal. Sadly, the neighbour happened to take it very personally. And so here we are. 

“I don’t like rehashing old arguments,” I tell him. “I might have made a mistake.”

“Yeah?”

“I thought by outsourcing my problem to the free market I could have had it solved.” How long has it been? Weeks? That had to be some kind of record, for an open contract worth 7 mil. Capitalism doesn’t solve everything, sadly.

“You’ve got to leave this place sooner or later.” 

“Actually,” I say, as I finish my cappuccino, “you do. Surely you’ll soon run out of funds. While as much as you’ve caused a labour shortage for me in New York, I still have my holdings in Naples.” 

“Camorra clans are competitive. You hide, you’d lose your place.”

There is that problem, of course. It’s also why the Camorra tends to devote a lot of effort to trying to get around the Italian Government’s attempt to isolate ex-bosses they’ve caught and jailed. Hasn’t always worked. And the Continental isn’t a maximum security prison. I can work from here if I want to. It’s just complicated. 

“That’s not your problem, is it?” I tell him. He stares. I try a grin. “I think this is the longest conversation we’ve ever had. That’s an improvement. Maybe you’re warming up to me.” 

That shuts up the neighbour for the rest of breakfast. Petty victory, maybe. 

**11 a.m.** 20 messages. Hm. Maybe the neighbour had a point about competitiveness. 

**1:15 p.m.** I have lunch in the room, because I’m trying to think. What _does_ actually count as the Continental grounds? 

**7:35 p.m.** The neighbour’s quiet at dinner too. I’m restless and annoyed, which makes me reckless, so I invite him for a drink. He ignores me. Fine. Early night then. 

**9 p.m.** Or not. One of the foreign bratva emissaries is at the bar. Handsome, blonde, tall. We talk. He’s here because the local bratva recently had a very relentless problem. A neighbour-shaped problem. I commiserate. We drink.

 **10:30 p.m.** I don’t like vodka. It makes my head swim. The emissary is amused. I kiss him in the lift but I’m fairly sure vodka has ruined me for the rest of the night. Doesn’t seem to matter. The emissary tells me he’s checking out in the morning. Pity. Big hands. He probably had a nice cock.

**DAY THREE**

**3 a.m.** Someone tries to kill the neighbour. This time there are guns involved. I wake up. Vodka kicks me in the gut. By the time I finish throwing up in the bathroom it’s over. I hope everyone is dead.

 **8:15 a.m.** No such luck. I still have my money. This is the most depressed I’ve been about retaining 7 million dollars. My faith in the general greed and competence of humanity has slipped further. I drag myself out for breakfast in dining room, feeling like death. 

**8:30 a.m.** My neighbour appears. He has a black eye but is otherwise apparently untouched. He actually has a healthy appetite this morning, of all mornings. Urgh.

It’s not retreating if you’re just moving down the hallway.

 **5:30 p.m.** My consigliere drops by for a visit. She looks tired. I tell her to go back to the hospital and she shrugs. -Who’s going to hold the fort?- 

True. -Glad you survived,- I tell her. 

She shakes her head. -He let me live.- I’m not entirely sure why that happened, but it seems to be one of the neighbour’s no-logic habits. Why massacre dozens of random minions but leave the most dangerous people alive? Maybe he needs to get his head checked.

 **6:42 p.m.** The neighbour’s a no-show at dinner. Not sure why. Maybe he was actually mortally wounded at breakfast and I didn’t notice. One can only hope.

 **9 p.m.** Can’t handle the bar tonight and there’s no one new at the foyer. I go to bed.

**DAY FOUR**

**8 a.m.** Amazing. A full night’s rest. I go to face the dining hall. The neighbour’s already there, eating. That’s a surprise. I stare for a bit. What the hell. I walk over to his table. Smirk when I sit down. Not that it works. He just glances up briefly and keeps eating.

Like I said. He’s dead inside. 

**8:15 a.m.** I cave in to curiosity. “Did stalking me finally get boring?”

He doesn’t answer for a while. Then he glances away. “Had to attend to some business.” 

“Here?” I could only be so lucky. 

The neighbour sniffs. “No. Elsewhere.” 

God damn. If I’d only known my local stalker had left the Continental all night… “Nobody tried to kill you outside?” 

This gives me a long, tired stare. “‘Bout eight people did, all in.”

Only eight? New York must be losing its touch. “What sort of business?” 

I’m curious. Maybe even a little offended. I rather thought I was the priority. Few people famously take a grudge to such extremes as my neighbour. He once killed 77 men over a dog. I know, I know. You ask, in that case, why the hell did I blow up his house and then try to have him killed? In my defense, I thought the latter solution would’ve worked. 

“Bid for peace with the bratva before. Maybe it didn’t work.” The neighbour looks carefully at me. “One of them tried to kill me in my room. Went to check whether it was a misunderstanding. Seems so.” 

“Blonde guy? Handsome?” The neighbour nods. I laugh. Maybe all that vodka had been good for something. 

Pity it hadn’t worked.

 **4 p.m.** I have tea in the rooftop garden, watching pigeons shit on unsuspecting passers-by. It’s surprisingly therapeutic. 

**7:10 p.m.** The neighbour was a no-show at lunch. I’m maybe a little relieved to see him loom into view at dinner. 

Can you actually get Stockholm Syndrome in a luxury hotel, while surrounded by scores of other people? Hm. 

**7:30 p.m.** I invite him for a drink, assuming that he’d say no. He nods. Fuck. 

**9 p.m.** This was probably a bad idea.

 **10 p.m.** No, it’s the _best_ idea. 

**11 p.m.** We go to my room because his room still has damage to the wall. It turns out that bourbon has this terrible way of eroding my self-respect. I end up sucking off the neighbour next to the balcony. He has a nice cock, thick and long, and he makes a surprised sound when I show off and fit all of it down my throat. At this point, if someone tries to claim the bounty from street level, I’m probably going to be pissed.

 **11:32 p.m.** No one gets assassinated. He leaves. I’m probably going to regret this in the morning.

**DAY FIVE**

**8:32 a.m.** Why do I do this to myself

 **1:32 p.m.** Light lunch. I eat it in the balcony, watching the street. I think about the eBay kid. Was putting up the listing the problem, or someone buying the socks the problem? Does profit need to have happened for it to count as business? 

I would ask the Manager, but he’s been in a bad mood for a while. That reminds me. 

**7:20 p.m.** The Manager actually calls the neighbour by a slightly different name. I ask him about it at dinner. 

“That’s also my name,” the neighbour says. He’s indifferent. “Longer version.” 

“Parents like to spell out a name when they’re trying to scold someone.” Does the Manager have a soft spot for the neighbour? That could be a problem. The Manager was fully capable of giving said neighbour a discount. I’ll have to find a way to check.

“Kinda.” 

“Well,” I tell him, “at the end of the day, every child eventually disappoints their parents.” God knows I did, try as I might. I still wonder why the old man chose the way he did. An asshole to the last. Thinking about the old man always makes me reckless. I offer to buy the neighbour a drink. He stares. I know he wants to decline. He doesn’t.

 **9:20 p.m.** The best bad ideas in life are made by two people in concert. 

**10 p.m.** This time we go to his room. The structural damage, if any, has been repaired. It’s a bigger suite than mine, a fact that annoys me on an ugly level. I bite him as we kiss in the shower and rush through prep. There are condoms and lube in the cabinets. He glares at me like he’d rather have his teeth sunk in my throat than his fingers in my ass. I’ve never actually had hatesex mostly sober—wine doesn’t get to me like bourbon—and it’s strangely exhilarating. The neighbour’s stronger than I thought, strong enough to pin me to the marble wall of the hideous bathroom and fuck me while I can’t do much more than hold on. Wow. 

We go another round on the bed afterwards, with me on my hands and knees and his teeth in the meat of the back of my neck. Is he really in his 50s? I’m starting to doubt reality. 

**11:49 p.m.** Walk of shame. Worth it.

**DAY SIX**

**4:32 a.m.** I don’t know what the latest assassin is using but it’s too noisy. What is wrong with people? I grab a pillow and some of the sheets and go to sleep in the tub.

 **8:14 a.m.** Ah yes, that’s right. I wanted the neighbour dead. I check my phone. Money’s still mine. Not sure if I’m disappointed.

 **8:30 a.m.** Breakfast. The neighbour’s hobo beard looks mildly singed on the right cheek. Huh. He doesn’t say anything about it though. 

**2:40 p.m.** Familiar face in the foyer. Chinese triad. We have a comfortable partnership over port management in Naples. Goods come in and out, nice and easy, counterfeits, legitimate stuff, drugs, everything. A bottleneck into Europe. We greet each other like friends and don’t talk business. It’s not necessary. 

**8 p.m.** The neighbour is a no-show at dinner, but he’s at the bar. Triad guy notices and excuses himself quickly. I sit in one of the alcoves, a little annoyed. I’ll just have one glass of red. 

**8:45 p.m.** Hmm. Not sure how we got here. My room again. I’m still sore from yesterday, which is a pity. I use my mouth until my jaw aches. He tries to return the favour, but he’s out of practice. I come anyway. Maybe it’s the shock. 

**10 p.m.** He falls asleep in the bed. What the hell. I briefly wonder if this is some sort of ploy for me to call off the contract, but the neighbour’s not a particularly complicated person.

I nearly call off the contract. Good sense takes over. Still, if someone makes an attempt tonight in my room, I’m not going to be pleased.

**DAY SEVEN**

**6:45 a.m.** The neighbour wakes up and accidentally elbows me in the ribs. Charming. I’m not generally a morning person. I tell him to go back to sleep or leave the room. I turn my back and he leaves the room.

Fine.

 **8:30 a.m.** Breakfast on the rooftop. The neighbour appears after I’ve had an espresso. We don’t talk.

 **11 a.m.** Spent the morning trying to figure out a way around the no-business problem. It’s a locked room mystery in reverse. I suppose it’s impossible. ~~Maybe I should just get my consigliere to think about it. She’s good at mysteries.~~

 **7:30 p.m.** The pasta today was actually edible. I’m pleasantly surprised. Maybe the chef has found God. I tentatively take him off my mental kill list.

 **9 p.m.** Drinks at the bar. This is starting to become a bad habit. Or a good habit. I decide not to have bourbon. We end up in my room, fucking on the floor. We’re both going to have carpet burn. 

**Midnight** The minibar is well-stocked. We drink sprawled in bed, because we’re adults, life is crazy, and the flip side of it is full of knives in the dark. “Still want to kill me?” I ask. He stares at me for a long moment and nods, then he sets his empty glass aside and settles onto his back, closing his eyes. Romance is dead. I laugh.

**Author's Note:**

> http://www.decanter.com/features/italy-50-greatest-wines-247119/  
> If you haven't read the sex diaries before and want to get started for some reason (no judgment) here is a list of the most popular ones ever: http://www.thedatereport.com/dating/love-and-culture/the-best-of-new-york-mags-sex-diaries-rip/ The diaries are still running (and still crazy), but under a different section of New York Magazine.  
> \--  
> twitter: manic_intent  
> tumblr: manic-intent.tumblr.com


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